A System Dynamics Model for Negotiation strategy Analysis with North Korea

남북관계와 대북협상전략

The summit meeting of the South North Korean leaders was a turning point in the relationships between the two countries. It was followed by the Red-Cross Meeting, Minister-Level Meeting, economic agreements, which have increased the relationship more colorful in both quantities and qualities. However, the half-century period for separation was too long to overcome all the problems by only one event. The two countries have quite different social systems; one politically strong person is governing the North, while many interest groups are involved in political decision making processes in the South. In short, it would take a long time to settle down all the problems residing between the two countries. A system dynamics model is developed to describe the long term dynamics of the relations between the South and North Koreas. As a first attempt, the model focuses only on the diplomatic meeting issues between the South and North. The model aggregates diplomatic issues into 5 categories; economic issues, security issues, infrastructure, cultural issues, and past problems. It assumes that there would not be any dramatic changes between the two countries. It is a conceptual model composed of around 200 variables, and should not be used as a forecast tool. However, it captures most of the logics discussed in the papers and conferences concerning the South and North Korea relations. Many sensitivity studies and Monte Carlo simulations have shown that the simulation results matches with mental models of experts; that is the model can be used as a learning tool or as a secondary opinion until the data required by the model is collected. In order to analyze the current situation, five scenarios are simulated and analyzed; the functional approach, the conditional approach, the balanced approach, the circumstantial approach, and the strategic approach. The functional approach represents that the South makes efforts in the area where the possibility of agreement is high for the next 10 years. The conditional approach is a scenario where the South impose all difficult issues as conditions for resolving other diplomatic issues. The balanced approach is resolving the five issues with the same priorities, while the circumstantial approach is resolving issues which seem to be resolved easily. Finally, another optimum approach has been seek using the system dynamics model developed. The optimum strategy (it is named as the strategic approach) was strikingly different from other four approaches. The optimum strategy is so complicated that no one could find it with mental model(or by just insights). Considering that the system dynamic model used to find the optimum is a simplifind (maybe over simplified) version of the reality, it is concluded that a well designed system dynamics model would be of great help to resolving the complicated diplomatic problems in any kind.